By Drew Belsky
The Obama administration's
Department of Justice (DoJ) filed a "statement of interest" Monday in
support of a Virginia high school sophomore who is seeking to use bathrooms
designated for members of the opposite sex.
In June 2015, the American Civil
Liberties Union (ACLU) filed suit against the Gloucester County School Board on
behalf of 15-year-old Gavin Grimm, who is biologically female but wants to use
male bathrooms and locker rooms.
Grimm claimed that she had used
such facilities without incident for seven weeks until December 2014, when the
school board enacted a
policy requiring "transgender" students to use
private restrooms.
Grimm testified in
early 2015 that "[n]ow that the board has passed this policy, school no
longer feels as safe and welcoming as it did before[.] ... Being singled out is
a glaring reminder of my differences and causes me significant discomfort every
time I have to use the restroom."
The Obama administration declared in
May 2014 that sex discrimination under Title IX applies to
those who identify as "transgender." The Department of
Education followed up last December by ordering federally
funded schools to classify students based on "gender identity" rather
than biological sex.
Regardless, Alliance Defending
Freedom attorney Jeremy Tedesco told
LifeSiteNews in June of this year that Grimm's and the ACLU's
discrimination claims would not hold water. Citing a district court case
in Pennsylvania, Tedesco noted (emphasis in original) that "[t]he Court
... highlighted that Title IX's implementing regulations state that schools do
not violate Title IX when they 'provide separate toilet, locker room,
and shower facilities on the basis of sex.'"
Title IX,
part of the U.S. Education Amendments of 1972, is a statute that
"prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded
education program or activity."
"Every court to consider this
issue has held that single-sex restrooms and locker room facilities are
permitted under Title IX," Tedesco concluded.
Now, according to the DoJ's "statement
of interest" in support of Grimm, filed this week, "[t]he United
States has a significant interest in ensuring that all students, including
transgender students, have the opportunity to learn in an environment free of
sex discrimination and that the proper legal standards are applied to claims
under Title IX" (p. 2, all citations omitted). Per the DoJ, Grimm
"is likely to succeed on the merits" of her Title IX claim, and
"it is in the public interest to allow [Grimm] ... to use the male
restrooms at Gloucester High School."
Regarding the Pennsylvania case
mentioned by Tedesco, the DoJ claims that "[t]he district court's
reasoning in that case was faulty and should not be followed."
One Gloucester County School Board
member who voted against the December bathroom policy fretted that
"federal dollars are at stake." Her concern was well-founded: five
months later, the Obama administration threatened to deny Virginia's Fairfax
County School Board $42 million in federal funding if the board refused to
change its own bathroom protocols. The Fairfax board ruled in May –
over the strenuous objections of
parents in attendance – that "transgender" students could use
facilities in accordance with their "gender identity."
"Although certain parents and
community members may object to students sharing a common use restroom with
transgender students," the DoJ declared in its brief for Grimm, "any
recognition of this discomfort as a basis for discriminating would undermine
the public interest."
Source:
LifeSiteNews.
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